COVID-19 India: Video of Bodies lying near the Coronavirus Patients in Sion Hospital, Mumbai, goes viral; BJP Hits out at BMC.
A video of COVID-19 victims' dead bodies lying neglected near other positive patients at a civic hospital in Sion, Mumbai went viral on Thursday. Nitesh Rane, the BJP legislator, shared the video on twitter and slammed the BMC for negligence at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital in Sion, Mumbai. He also underlined that this hospital has the majority of patients from Dharavi, the biggest slum area of India and presently one of the Coronavirus hotbeds in Maharashtra. He pointed out that BMC is the richest civic body yet has failed to protect the patients.
Rane tweeted, "Is this how we treat our working class? Such carelessness of the medical staff and the Sion hospital could result in further spread of coronavirus infection."
Opposition a leader in the State Assembly & former Chief Minister deemed this as an "extremely serious issue". He said, "It is a very serious matter that patients have to be treated on the side of the corpse. The question is whether Mumbaikars have no guardian. The government should take immediate action and ensure that such an incident does not happen again," hitting out at the Shiv Sena led Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
Congress leader Milind Deora also questioned BMC, tweeting, "Outraged to see corpses laid beside the sick at Sion Hospital. Why isn’t @mybmc following @WHO -prescribed protocols when disposing of #COVID?19 corpses?". He further added, "Public hospital staff are doing their best with limited resources at hand. Mumbai’s administration needs to step up NOW." Hospital's Dean Dr Pramod Ingale shockingly revealed that the relatives of the Coronavirus victims are hesitant to take their bodies. He said to PTI, "That is the reason why the bodies were kept there unattended. We have now removed the bodies and are probing the matter. On being questioned on the reason behind not shifting bodies to a mortuary, Ingale said, "There are 15 slots in the hospitals mortuary of which 11 are already filled. If we shift all the bodies to the mortuary, it will be a problem for bodies of those who died of causes other than COVID-19."
Total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Mumbai crossed 10000 and 412 deaths on Wednesday. India-wide, the reported death toll has risen to 1783, and the total tally is up to 52,952.